Torturing the Mind, Breaking the Heart
by Percyjacksonfan3
Summary: Snow leans forward. "She doesn't need you." His breath reaches Peeta at the same time his next words do."Mr. Mellark, she doesn't love you."/ Set during the first half of Mockingjay. This is what happened in the Capitol during Peeta's imprisonment. This is some glimpses into his torture and what was going on around him. Angsty, rated for violence and swearing, darkish themes.


**This more follows the book than the movie. And it's angsty. Extremely. I wanted to get everybody right in the feels, especially after the release of Mockingjay Part One. But I'm proud of it, and hope you guys like it!**

**I was going to make it a chapter story but couldn't find a good place to end it, it just seemed like one continuous piece. So here's the result.**

**Review if you like it, maybe I'll write more! Review if you didn't like it, tell me what I could improve on! Review, please? ;)**

**Enjoy!**

**Love you all! **

**Percyjacksonfan3**

oooOOOooo

When they take the bag off of his head he thinks he'll be blind from how white it all is.

For the past month (?), week (?), days (?) he's been in the dark. Literally and figuratively.

But this room, this room is white. White walls, white floor, white table and chairs and no windows to add any other colour. And the man waiting for him. He wears white, his hair is white and the rose- somehow the rose's whiteness stands out more than any other white in the room.

His cell- for there is no other word for it, despite the place being furnished and more comfortable than he expected- is full of shadows. There is no light but the glow from under his cell door and through the bars in a small square hole about where his head would be at the door.

Peeta's been terrorized, interrogated and harassed by many strangers. Before they brought him here they changed his plain, grey clothes- boxers, a pair of pants and a simple t-shirt- to an identical white set. Even so, he thinks it's because his old clothes are dirty. He doesn't think it's important or symbolic in any way until he sees who's waiting for him.

He's expecting another nameless man in a suit. A cunning looking woman who tries to dig deep and jar him emotionally. Even a peacekeeper, despite the fact that he hasn't been beaten.

He gets none of these people.

Instead, the person sitting calmly on the other side of the rectangular table, hands folded on its surface, is President Snow.

Peeta doesn't know what to think. He's been around the president a handful of times, but this is different- obviously. President Snow has looked down upon him from his mansion's balcony, has stood beside him to publicly congratulate him on his fake-engagement to Katniss (_don't think her name, not here, not here, don't associate this place with her, she's too good, _but he can`t help it anymore) and had been feet away as he placed half of a victors crown on his head.

But this is different. Snow has never looked at Peeta over the surface of a table in an interrogation/torture/manipulation room before.

Snow is cunning, Peeta would have known this even without his quiet threats to Katniss, or Haymitch's warning words to both of them to prove it. Snow is smart and powerful, not to mention power hungry. A dangerous combination.

His eyes are hard and Peeta can smell the enhanced perfume of the rose in his suit lapel. A white rose, of course. Does he ever wear any different?

But there's a different smell too, one of blood and sickness, and Peeta resists the urge to gag.

He grew up in District 12. He's been in two Hunger Games arenas and held people as they died. He's smelled worse things than a little blood mixed with the smell of a rose.

"Peeta." The word is warm, inviting. Very out of place, considering Peeta is a prisoner and President Snow is the captor. "I trust you're being well taken care of."

It's not so much an inquiry as a statement. President Snow knows exactly how Peeta is being treated at the moment. Nothing happens under his orders that he doesn't know every detail of.

But Peeta has always been good with words and lies. They are his strong suit, after all. He's had little over a year now to practice and become a master. "Quite, thank you."

Snow smiles, but it's not warm. It's condescending and pitying. "You must have questions for me."

Peeta has many questions, all of them ones that Snow could answer, but the baker's boy knows he would never get a straight answer out of the President and doesn't want to waste his breath. He sits quietly instead, watching, waiting.

"Not even about our young Katniss Everdeen?" Snow inquires casually, but his eyes are watching Peeta closely, never moving from his face.

Peeta's hands clench, involuntarily, and he's sure Snow notices. He doesn't care. Hearing the president call Katniss _ours_, as if she somehow belongs to them both, momentarily makes Peeta forget he's supposed to be playing nice.

"She's with the Rebels," Snow tells him. "It is a pity how she left you behind for dead."

There's no honesty behind his words.

Peeta can't help but clench his fists again before releasing the tension in them. He adopts the face he's worn many times, the expression he gives everybody when someone from the Capitol asks him how he and Katniss are doing. The face he first gave Effie when she asked if maybe the star-crossed lovers act wasn't completely an act for him.

"Oh I don't think it was her who left me behind," Peeta tells him as if he's just talking about the weather to an old friend. "If you'd been in the arena, hearing her scream my name, trying to find me, I doubt you would think so either."

"Not her?" The President asks, raising one eyebrow slightly. "Who, then?"

Peeta shrugged. "Whoever's in charge over there."

"You don't know?"

"I don't."

"She never told you."

Peeta meets the Presidents eyes. "She didn't know either, at the time."

Now Snow's smile really is condescending, as if he somehow found Peeta cute, like a child. Full of words, but fake words. Like a child who believes in Santa Clause.

Someone who deludes themselves, thinking they know better.

"Peeta." Snow's voice is supposed to be sincere and gentle, Peeta supposes, but it comes out disbelieving. "You've seen the footage. She blew up the arena, letting the rebels send in their hovercrafts to collect her; to collect her, but leave you behind. It's quite obvious she knew something."

This is dangerous territory, and Peeta knows it. He has no idea what Katniss knew or didn't know about the rebellion, but he's sure, with everything he has, that she would have done everything in her power to save him. He was the only thing she had from home in that arena. When she told him she needed him when they were sitting on the beach in the arena of the Quarter Quell there was honesty in her eyes. He saw it.

Maybe not like he needed her, but needing is still needing. It isn't an option, and it drives you to do almost anything you can to make sure the thing you need is safe.

Hadn't they done that for each other, time and time again?

"She didn't know."

"I assure you that she did."

Snow sounds so certain that for a second, just a fleeting moment, Peeta is unsure. Could it be true? Could Katniss have knowingly left him for dead, to be tortured by the Capitol for all she knew?

It would make things easier for her and Gale.

No.

He regrets the thought and guilt fills him at the unfairness of it. Snow is wrong, or trying to trick him. Peeta won't let it work because he knows better.

She wouldn't have left him. Because Peeta loves her, and he could never love somebody who would be so selfish. Even if she doesn't love him like he loves her- and he isn't sure if she does or not- she's still Katniss. Katniss, who protects anybody and everybody she can. Katniss who covered Rue in flowers and volunteered for Prim at the Reaping.

Peeta stays silent.

"And since she knew, you either know something," Snow continues when it becomes obvious he won't speak. "Or she left you in the dark because she doesn't care."

"Maybe she cares too much," Peeta says quietly. "Maybe, if she really does know something, she didn't say anything to me for this exact reason. So that I have nothing to offer you."

"Oh, you have a lot to offer me." Snow says quietly before changing topics faster than Peeta can figure out what he means with his words. "But I think you're reasoning is flawed. Tell me one time when she genuinely showed you that she cared about you. So far, I have seen none. You care for her, tragically so, but from what I see, Katniss cares only for her sister and her... hunting partner. Her father, as well, if he was alive today. But I don't think Katniss even cares about her own mother. Why would she care about you, a boy who was the reason she almost died countless times? You're nothing to her, Mr. Mellark. An inconvenience at best, a cause of endless torment, annoyance and confusion at worst. You pressure her and guilt her for what she feels for Mr. Hawthorne. With you gone... what stops her from being with him? There is no more public to impress. Not with the star-crossed lovers act. No sponsors needed, no games to pretend for. Why does she need you now, when she has everyone from her life before the Games already?"

Peeta is staring at the edge of the table. "You're wrong," he says tightly, but can find no words to back up the statement. Words, his constant companion, are suddenly eluding him at the time he needs them most.

Snow leans forward. "She doesn't need you."

His breath reaches Peeta at the same time his next words do.

"Mr. Mellark, she doesn't _love_ you."

Somehow Peeta manages to laugh, an action that causes Snow to sit back in his chair. But it's funny, isn't it, that Snow thinks he can break Peeta with those four words that Peeta already knows by heart? It's funny that Snow doesn't know his real weakness- not yet. But Peeta thinks he'll go back and study every moment Peeta is caught on screen and every conversation recorded with a bug from a room to try to figure it out. Snow studies his prey before he goes in for the kill. He thought he'd known Peeta's weakness. He doesn't.

Isn't that funny?

Or is he just going mad?

"Oh, you're not telling me anything new there." Peeta says. "I already knew that."

He stands up and, with a final dip of Snow's head that signals a brief goodbye, Peeta turns and walks away. Hopefully leaving Snow with even less knowledge than he came in the room with.

oooOOOooo

"We have Katniss Everdeen in a cell and she'll be tortured endlessly and mercilessly for information if you don't tell us what we want to know."

For a second real, encompassing fear swallows him. What? How could that have happened? How could the Rebels have let Katniss out of their sight, even for a second, to let her be captured? How could they be so stupid- even Haymitch would have known better.

Haymitch.

Peeta feels the new emotions that always come when he thinks about Haymitch these days. Anger. Betrayal. Hurt. But also a quiet resignation because he knows that Haymitch would have saved Peeta if he could. And he also knows that he had to get Katniss first.

Peeta, unlike his captors, has put some of the pieces of the puzzle together in his time here. He's sure that Katniss didn't know about the rebellion. Just like he didn't. She had been just as confused as he was when the victors in the Quarter Quell kept dying to save the two of them.

Has she figured out why they did it? Does she know they did it so she would live?

Of course that raises the question of why they also saved _him_? Why Finnick brought him back from Death's door, why Mags sacrificed herself so Finnick could carry him and why the unnamed morphling from 6 threw herself in front of the monkey to spare him. Peeta's not so self-deprecating to feel like he doesn't have any worth, but he's also not confident and conceited enough to believe they saved him because he was important. Right now, because they left him to the Capitol and haven't tried to rescue him, he doesn't feel very important.

Which leaves the question. Why save him? Did they save him for himself? No. For themselves? Maybe, although he's unsure of why or what that could mean.

For her?

Now he's unsure. Because he deluded himself before into thinking Katniss might actually love him, after their first Hunger Games. What a blow it had been to him when he found out that had all been a lie, made up for the cameras to keep them both alive.

He doesn't want to delude himself again. He doesn't want the hope, and the need for her to love him back to confuse him. He can't look at this from an uncaring way. He can't trust his own judgement when it comes to her feelings for him, because with the world they live in she'll never really be able to be honest and figure out what those feelings are.

But maybe somebody else took the time to do it. She's definitely important enough for people with power to want to figure out her motives and how to control her.

Because that's what people in power do, Peeta's come to realize. They learn to understand their enemies so they can either eliminate them or keep them at bay.

And those people who took the time to study Katniss Everdeen, what did they discover? That he was important to her? That she loved him? Is that why those people saved him time and time again, because whoever was in charge told them to? Save him and hope it would help them control her?

Look how well that turned out. Finnick wasted his breath, Mags and the woman from 6 wasted their lives.

He isn't doing anyone any good sitting here in a white room of the Capitol. Except maybe President Snow.

"Did you hear what I said?" The man Peeta doesn't know sits across from him just like the President had a few days ago. But this man means nothing. His words were empty and Peeta didn't care about him at all. His words were meaningless, his threats ' _We have Katniss Everdeen in a cell and she'll be tortured endlessly and mercilessly for information if you don't tell us what we want to know,' _are unimportant and obviously untrue.

At least that's what Peeta's hoping. Because if they are true, he'll hurt Katniss by the way he acts now.

"I heard you." Peeta responds simply. Simplicity won't mean stepping over the invisible line he's been careful not to cross until now. Simplicity means he won't get killed and no one he cares about will get hurt for his stupid words.

"Will you tell us what we need to know, Mr. Mellark?"

"I don't know anything more than you do."

The man, who has thinning blonde hair, brown eyes and seems short, frowns. His face is slightly wrinkled, and frowning makes it worse. "Did you under stand what I said?"

"I did."

"You don't believe me."

"No, not really." Peeta said, staring into his eyes unflinching. He's learned that if you give an inch they'll take a mile, so you should never show even the slightest bit of weakness.

The man nods, as if expecting it. Has President Snow told him how to act? Have these two men spent time in a room with Peeta's others captors, sitting around a table, tossing around ideas for what to try and trick him with next?

He presses a single finger to his ear, where a dark oddly shaped piece of plastic protrudes with a circular coil coming down. An earpiece.

"Play the live footage of the girl's cell."

And then... he hears her.

All around him, coming from every surface in the room, he hears her screams. Screams of terror and agony and pain, wails that make Peeta's blood drains from his face and turn sluggish and slow in his veins.

Automatically he hunches over, squeezes his eyes shut and tries to ignore the sounds. His hands are shackled, in handcuffs, and he rips against the metal, trying to pull his hands apart to cover his ears.

Her screams are excruciating and Peeta can hardly think through the sound and the pain he feels. But he does, and when the man speaks into his earpiece once more and the screams disappear, he remembers.

Was this what Katniss and Finnick felt in the arena with the jabberjays? Was this what drove them to feel that inescapable terror?

He remembers talking to Katniss after she heard the jabberjays. Trying to convince her, to get through the wall worry and fear makes and make her realize that the sounds weren't real.

_"It was a trick, Katniss. A horrible one. But we're the only ones who can be hurt by it. We're the ones in the Games. Not them."_

_"You really believe that?" She said._

_"I really do," he said._

_"Do you believe it, Finnick?" She asked._

_"It could be true. I don't know," he said. "Could they do that, Beetee? Take someone's regular voice and make it ..."_

_"Oh, yes. It's not even that difficult, Finnick. Our children learn a similar technique in school," said Beetee._

We're the ones in the Games.

It seems like Peeta is still stuck there. Just surrounded by different people, different enemies who want to hurt and kill him.

Did they really think using the trick they used before would work? That he wouldn't understand, put the pieces together?

"That was a live audio feed from the cell of Miss Everdeen. As we speak men are in her room, torturing her. Hitting her, insulting her, driving her mad...Are you ready to tell us what we need to know, Mr. Mellark?" The man's voice was emotionless, as if nothing had just happened.

Peeta was still shaking.

_It's not even that difficult._

With a deep breath Peeta answered him. "No." He said, his voice surprisingly strong. "I told you, I told them, I told Snow. I don't know anything."

Almost a minute later the blonde man replied. "You may go back to your room, Mr. Mellark. These guards will escort you."

Peeta got up and left the room without saying another word.

oooOOOooo

He starts talking to the guards.

He's starting to get bored, doing nothing. They take his shackles off when he's in his room- they've started taking things away. There's no furniture except a thin mattress on a small, wooden bed frame, a rectangular shaped wooden table and one solitary chair. No rug, no pictures and paintings to look at, no ornaments. The walls are a dark, deep blue and the floor is wood as well.

He had one painting, a painting of a jar full of flowers, that had a mahogany picture frame. Seeing that reminded him of Effie, which was painful because Peeta didn't know if Effie had known about the rebellion or if she had been just as much in the dark as Katniss and him. Effie hadn't been stupid, Peeta knew that. He knew that she knew the star-crossed lovers act was an act, she knew about tensions in the Districts. She did not know about President Snow's threats, Peeta guessed, unless for some reason Haymitch had told her.

But Peeta didn't think Effie knew about the threats, or the rebellion. Haymitch, despite trying to deny it, seemed to have a soft spot for Effie. Peeta suspected he wouldn't have told her anything he didn't have to. For all he knew, Effie had been rescued in a hovercraft and taken to 13, just like Katniss. Maybe Haymitch had gotten her out before everything went to hell and Snow sent out people to round up anybody that had anything to do with Katniss.

Where Haymitch had a way of talking to Katniss, Peeta and Effie had been closer than people might expect. She was easy to talk to if you could look past the idiocy of her background. She had even slipped a couple of times when talking to Peeta, making him think she might not be the naive, shallow escort she pretended to be.

Besides. The way Effie looked at Haymitch wasn't all that different from the way Peeta looked at Katniss. Both were seemingly unattainable in the way Effie and Peeta wanted them to be. Effie was good at listening and good for talking to.

Yes, Peeta wondered what had happened to Effie. He wondered where Portia and his prep team was. He wondered, he wondered, he wondered.

To distract himself from his thoughts he started talking to the guards.

They rarely switched guards, and if they did they did when Peeta was sleeping, so he hadn't noticed. It was usually the same two people. One man, one woman.

The woman didn't look Capitol, she looked like she was from a District. Peeta guessed District 2. She had black hair but pale skin, and blue eyes. Her face was covered in freckles of all colours. Brown, golden, light brown, dark, rich hot chocolate coloured brown. Her straight hair was always in a ponytail and long enough to fall just past her shoulders when it was up. From her collarbone down she wore a skintight black jacket that covered her arms shoulder to wrist. Her pants were the same material and black, the same colour as her laced up combat boots. She wore gloves and held a gun.

The man was Capitol. Peeta wasn't sure how he could tell, because the usual fashion trends weren't apparent on him, but he just knew. The man, while obviously well built and muscled, was soft. Peeta had the feeling he hadn't really seen much battle. He had short cropped brown hair, eyes that were almost green, lightly tanned skin and wore the same uniform as his female counterpart and his gun looked just as lethal.

The woman's name was Claudia. The man's was Ouranos. Another way to tell he was Capitol.

It had started simply.

The first day when Peeta tried to make conversation, they ignored him completely. They did the second day- he wasn't sure if it was really days, he went by his sleeping schedule- and then the third. But on the fourth day, the day before he talked to President Snow, when he asked for a pencil and paper, the man spoke.

"You can't have that."

Four words. But it was a start.

"Give me something, then." Peeta pleaded through the barred hole of his cell door. "Anything. I'm-" He stopped himself from finishing his sentence. Even saying 'dying from boredom' seemed wrong and insensitive. "I'm bored." He said. "Could I have a some sort of ball? Or a deck of cards? Dominoes or a chess set even?"

The man and woman had exchanged glances. "We'll see what we can do," the woman had said. Her voice was deeper than Peeta had expected, but still feminine.

Peeta decided that was enough conversation for that day. He didn't want to push his luck.

But the next day, after seeing the President, when he was served a less filling meal than usual (punishment, maybe, for his words to Snow?) the man had set down a deck of cards beside the plate on the table in Peeta's room.

"There you go."

Peeta looked over from where he lay on the bed and sat up, turning to place his foot and his prosthetic on the ground. "Thank you." He said.

The man's eyes softened a fraction. "You better eat up." He said. "This stuff will get cold fast."

It was boneless chicken with a side of buttered green beans and carrots. Less than Peeta had been served in the Capitol, less than he had been getting lately, but still better than what he would have gotten at home.

Peeta went to sit down and eat. He was never given cutlery. He had a paper cup filled with water. Snow was probably afraid he would take a plastic knife and try to stab his jailers in the neck or something, or smash a glass cup over their head.

He might have. If he'd thought he could make it out of the building.

But he kind of doubted it.

"What's your name?" Peeta asked the man before he started eating and before the man could get to the door.

The man hesitated. "Ouranos." He said finally.

Peeta tried to smile warmly at him. "Nice to meet you." He said. "I'm Peeta."

He figured the man would know his name already but he felt it was only proper to introduce himself as well. It would make the guard feel more comfortable, hopefully, and help Peeta from feeling as if everybody knew everything about him while he knew nothing about them.

The woman made an impatient sound and the man, with one last glance back to see that Peeta was eating, slipped out of the room and closed the door behind him.

Claudia was harder. She was less trusting and wary, always glancing left and right when she spoke so little as a word to him in the beginning.

But eventually, just like Ouranos, she opened up.

Claudia is married to a man back in District 2. She had two children, one boy who is thirteen and a little girl who is seven.

Once the war is over she plans on going home to them. She'll retire and get a job in District 2 so she can be closer to her family.

As time goes on and different people take Peeta out of his room and try to get him to talk, he learns about his guards. The two people- always the same two people- who escort him to and from the same room almost every day.

Ouranos doesn't have children or a wife but he has a girlfriend of two years. Capitol, but not as... eccentric as most of them are, he tells Peeta with a fond smile. And he has his parents, who are in their 70's, nearing their 80's, who rely on him for everything. If anything ever happened to Ouranos his parents wouldn't have enough money to survive.

And Peeta, the prisoner, the one being emotionally tortured, feels sorry for these two people. As they start to talk to him more they lose the look of disgust and start acting like he's a regular human being. Once they start to act like he's human, it's easier for him to feel the same about them.

These two people have other people depending on them. Claudia has children, thirteen year old Clive who tries to take care of his sister when his parents can't and seven year old Rosy who likes peppermints and music and has never seen a person killed, not even on television. Ouranos has his two parents, who both retired to spend more time with each other and their son, not expecting the prices for food, clothes and accessories to rise because of a rebellion. Ouranos keeps them alive. Claudia's husband takes care of their kids in 2, but her paycheck makes sure they have enough food on the table every night.

Peeta sits in his cell and builds card houses, over and over because it's the only thing he has that could distract himself from doing nothing. His guards used to stand outside the door, one on each side, standing against the wall. Now they've started to actually come in the cell, using the one sided door handle to open the door. One would come in, stand just inside the room, and talk to him, the other standing outside to watch the hallway. Ouranos seemed to trust him more (Peeta wonders if it has something to do with him being a Capitol man) but Claudia has more of a story to tell.

"Why do you do this?" He asks her one day- maybe his second or third week of being in captivity.

She looks at him sharply, probably expecting him to try to convince her to help him break out. "We're not allowed to discuss-"

"No, no." Peeta shook his head, focused on building his 68th card house. "I mean why leave your home and your family to do this? Do you just really trust President Snow, and support him? Did he threaten you?"

"I..." When Peeta's eyes glanced up Claudia visibly swallowed. "We needed the money. Marko, my husband, doesn't make enough. I thought I could come out here for a few months at a time and go back home." She shook her head. "But I came out here two years ago after training to be a Peacekeeper. They haven't let me go back home."

Probably worried you've heard something, Peeta thought to himself but didn't say out loud. Snow wouldn't want any information getting out of this place. If Capitol people learned what he was doing...

"You haven't seen your kids in two years?" He asked instead, forgetting about his card house.

Claudia shook her head. "I've talked to them on a phone. We managed to buy one of those. But... no. I haven't seen them."

Ouranos cleared his throat from outside. "It's pretty common with people in here." He said. "One of Snow's trusted officials is in charge of handling all of the security in the building. He decides when we get to leave; just a month ago he told everybody that they could all go home if we served Snow for the duration of the rebellion. They would pay us enough to keep our families going for years."

Claudia nodded, shifting her gun in her arms. "So I just have to wait a few more days." She said to Peeta. "Snow told everybody in the Capitol that the rebellion would be over before it even started. He promised that the Capitol forces were far superior to that of 13's."

Peeta swallowed and lifted the two cards, one in each hand, once more. His hands were shaking though and he was afraid to place the cards on the others in case he knocked the entire thing over.

Did his guards realize they had just given him more information on the war than anybody else in this place? Or did they think the information so unimportant that it didn't matter whether Peeta knew it or not? Were President Snow's words even true? Claudia and Ouranos believed them, obviously, but Peeta knew Snow wouldn't divulge the true position of the Capitol to it's citizens or common guards.

He doesn't ask them anymore that day.

His food portions are still the same size, but Peeta wonders when that will change. Snow won't want to keep feeding him well if he's not going to give him anything. Soon he'll accept or realize that Peeta really doesn't have anything to offer him and start with the true torturing. So far the most torturous thing they've done to him is using Katniss's screams to manipulate him into telling them everything he knows- which is nothing, of course.

Every day he gets back to his cell more frustrated than before. He's sick of being hounded hour after hour for information he doesn't have.

When Ouranos and Claudia brought him back from a particularly trying interrogation that had lasted seven hours at the least, he is physically and mentally exhausted. His nightmares are starting up again, worse than ever, and now Katniss is no longer there to hold to keep the nightmares at bay.

All he has is two guards who are paid to keep him locked up, talks with strangers who want information, and President Snow.

He curls up on his bed and hugs his knees to his chest, biting on a fist to keep from screaming.

oooOOOooo

Caesar Flickerman, despite everything, makes Peeta feel relieved.

Even though the talk show host is probably one more pawn being used to try to manipulate him, Peeta doesn't care. Caesar is from before his imprisonment and right now Peeta's thankful for even that.

Peeta had paid attention to Caesar like anybody else from the Games had. Caesar had known, Peeta is sure of it, that tension in the Districts was nearly chaotic before the Quarter Quell. He had known because it had been obvious he was trying to coax Peeta into talking about things that were safe, yet interesting for viewers. His relationship with Katniss- but only light, polite conversation topics. Nothing risky.

The first Hunger Games Peeta had gone along with it. He had played it safe, talking about nothing more shocking than his crush on Katniss.

This year for the Quarter Quell, Peeta hadn't played along with his old friend Caesar.

At first he had. He had visibly seen the moment Caesar had relaxed during his interview that night. Katniss's fiery transformation from a girl in a wedding dress to a girl in a mockingjay costume had shaken the celebrity and made him anxious and tense. But Peeta was the guy who Caesar had been able to talk to so easily last year, someone who knew how to act in public before the cameras.

Peeta played along at the start, answering Caesar's first question about how he felt about the Quarter Quell announcement. After his first answer Caesar had sat back more comfortably in his chair, obviously thinking Peeta wouldn't say anything inflammatory like the others.

But then Caesar asked gently, and Peeta can still remember how concerned he had sounded, as if he truly cared about the entire thing, "_You realized there was never going to be a wedding?"_

Well Caesar, Peeta had thought, it's like you're trying to help me along here.

So he had dropped the bomb that they were already married. But forget that, he needed something more, gasps weren't enough from the Capitol audience.

He had needed pandemonium.

So he had dropped the baby bomb, on a whim.

And he had seen it, for barely an instant, in Caesar's eyes. A flash of guilt and disgust; guilt and disgust aimed directly at the Capitol, directly at President Snow.

If Caesar had felt that way, even for a second, Peeta knew he'd struck his mark. His thoughts were confirmed when shouts, yelling and screaming had filled is ears from the Capitol crowd. People fainted, they screeched accusations of barbarism, they cried and they sat there, processing, not knowing what to feel, too stunned to do anything but watch as their fellow citizens protested in outrage, even if it was only for a few minutes.

His tears when he had greeted Katniss weren't completely fake. The fact that they were here again, with her life in danger once more, with him knowing that this time she really would be the only one to survive. The fact that the wedding was fake, that she never would grow heavy with his child... all of that piled up, expanding inside of him, was enough to send tears streaming down his face.

The victors standing in one undefeated line, holding hands, had been the icing on the cake, so to speak.

And Caesar had been there right in front of him as it had all happened. Caesar, who had once proclaimed to be the star-crossed lovers biggest supporter and fan.

As Peeta walked up the stage towards him with his shoulder hunched slightly, his hands manacled in front of him and what he was sure was a dull look in his eyes, Caesar's eyes were filled with no support.

There was dread. There was pleading. There was surprise and strain at the sight of handcuffs.

There was no support.

It seemed, despite Peeta's faint, childish hope, that Caesar was a Capitol man through and through, to his very core. Peeta never should have doubted that.

The guard behind him is a stranger, but he's bigger and bulkier than Ouranos is. Hulking and huge, he speaks as Peeta makes his way to the stage with the two strategically placed chairs on it.

Peeta tries to catch Caesar's eyes but the host has suddenly turned away from him, getting one last dab of powder on his face.

Peeta's already been made over for this occasion. By his old prep team, Niagra, Darlford and Polly, surprisingly enough. Seeing them had been a shock to his system, with their glowing smiles and bright eyes, as they talked about how nice it was that President Snow had accommodated the four of them for so long, and how sad they were that Portia had been sick since the end of the Quarter Quell, which was why she was, obviously, absent.

"Sick?" Peeta had asked with disbelief.

"Yes, Peeta," Polly had said seriously, no hint of lies on her face. "It's just dreadful! She can't even pick up the phone to call us, someone had to deliver a letter she had written instead."

"Have you talked to her since?" Peeta had asked.

"No, dear," Darlford had said. "She's been so busy..."

Peeta stopped listening then and there. He had suspected that Portia would be executed. Cinna, Katniss's stylist, had obviously been aware of, if not directly involved in, the Rebellion. As his partner, Peeta doubted Portia had been unaware.

He was truly sorry at the new knowledge. He had liked Portia.

Within minutes he had been ushered away from his adoring prep team out to the stage, and he suspected that the news of Portia- because obviously Peeta would have put the pieces together, even if his team hadn't- was meant to weaken him, to shatter some sort of resolve. To unhinge him, at least a little.

He wouldn't let it. Portia wouldn't want that, especially if she had been part of the Rebellion.

"Don't try anything," the guard had warned him before unlocking his shackles and letting him turn his wrists around and flex his fingers. Bones popped and Peeta almost groaned at the feeling as his blood flowed freely through his veins once more.

He looked around him, at the white room he was in. There was a green fabric behind him, covering the portion of the wall that would be visible to camera, and Peeta wondered what it was for. Why would they need this, this green screen? What did a green cloth do?

The people right in front of them, only about 6 feet in front of the chairs, had cameras and lights and were all dressed in black and unknown to Peeta. He wondered what Snow had on them to make sure they would never speak a word of this interview outside this room, par what was broadcasted to the public.

Or was it a Live interview, like the Hunger Games had been, Peeta wondered. If so he could say anything and they wouldn't be able to cut the cameras off quick enough. Maybe District 13 would be watching.

Maybe Katniss would see.

That was good to know. Even the possibility of her standing in front of a huge screen seeing him alive and okay on television was enough to make him feel marginally better. If she had been worrying, this would stop her. If she had completely forgotten he was still out here, which he knew wasn't the case (it wouldn't be, couldn't be, because she would have felt his absence, she would have, she would have), she would be reminded that she had someone to fight for.

"Caesar," he greeted, with a slight dip of his head.

Caesar shook his head instead of replying, pointing to one of the cameras. "They want it on film." Was all he said.

Ah. Well that answered a couple of questions.

Snow wasn't here, a fact that Peeta found surprising. Surely he would want to be there to give direct orders or try to intimidate Peeta into behaving.

After all, all of this, the interview, had been his idea.

_"You will call for a cease-fire," Snow had hissed in his ear earlier that day. "You will make a personal message to Katniss Everdeen and tell her to lay down her weapons and stop fighting. You will convince the Districts that this is folly, useless fighting that will end in nothing but ash and rubble with nobody left to revel in victory and rewrite the histories. Do this, Mr. Mellark," Snow said threateningly as he pulled away to stare him dead in the eye, "Or I will kill Ms. Mason. Do this," Snow hissed, pulling away to stare him dead in the eye, "And I will let Katniss Everdeen live when she is caught by the Capitol."_

_Peeta's heart had clenched and he'd dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. "You promise?"_

_Snow nodded, smiling evilly. "I do."_

But Peeta isn't as smart as Katniss and Prim are. He doesn't come up with the idea of making Snow promise this in front of hundreds of witnesses. He just accepts that this is the best deal he will get and hopes Snow sticks to his word.

That had been this morning in Peeta's cell. Obviously Snow was getting desperate, desperate enough to show everybody that he was alive and well. Desperate enough to have to have _Peeta_ try to convince Katniss to stop fighting.

Desperate enough to use Johanna as leverage, despite her being the only one who knew anything about the Rebellion. Peeta had been taunted with the fact that she had been captured enough times, and he had known, somehow, that the Capitol men who told him that over and over again, hadn't been lying.

Desperate enough, Peeta hoped, to give Katniss a full pardon.

"Places." A man behind the main camera called out. "Snow gave the word. Let's go."

"Alright," a woman beside the camera had said, staring directly at Peeta. Caesar, it seemed, knew what to do already. "Nice and natural boys, just like before. Keep it safe."

_Safe_. Keep it safe. What a strange word to use and what a strange thing to say when Peeta knew any wrong move he made would result in Johanna being tortured worse than she already was.

"And get ready in 5, 4, 3, 2..." The woman nodded and pointed at them.

Peeta doesn't need any coaching, they don't need to take any retakes or repeat any lines. He's always been good in front of a camera, and with Caesar as his companion well, they're practically the masters at this.

Peeta watched Caesar as he smiles brightly, wide and at ease the second the camera's red light blinked on. It was amazing, Peeta thought, in it's own way, how the man could pretend so easily in front of a camera, in front of hundreds of people, but couldn't do the same in front of only one.

Caesar settles back a bit in his chair and finally speaks directly to him, staring him dead in the eye after giving him a long stare. "So... Peeta... welcome back."

And suddenly it's just like it's always been with Caesar, and Peeta has to smile at the irony of it, at the stupid words people keep saying. He has to smile, because everybody in this room is pretending he hasn't just walked here from a jail cell, pretending as if he was just on a walk nearby and decided to pop back in to visit old friends.

Old friends indeed.

Subconsciously he begins to trace designs on the chair he's sitting in. His fingers remember these designs, of the painting and the frosting and the designing and decorating they'd done in the past. The motion soothes him as he thinks of what to say, what President Snow would be alright with. As he thinks of what would be safe.

He decides to stick with simplicity, at least for now. "I bet you thought you'd done your last interview with me, Caesar."

"I confess, I did. The night before the Quarter Quell... well, who ever thought we'd see you again?"

We. Not I. Because this is possibly live in front of possibly everybody left in the world and Peeta needs to remember that. Needs to know what's at stake, what the fallout of this could be if he makes a wrong move.

But the Quarter Quell hadn't been what Peeta had been referring to, and he thinks Caesar knows that. He was referring to the fact that Caesar had, of course, been aware of Peeta being imprisoned in the President' mansion.

And who ever thought Coriolanus Snow would let Peeta sit out here in front of Caesar and a camera crew again? Who ever though he would let Peeta do another interview again?

He frowned, unable to hide his slight displeasure at both Caesar's words and his own thoughts. But back to the question, back to the question. Keep it short, keep it simple, keep it safe.

"It wasn't part of my plan, that's for sure."

Caesar leans in a little, meeting his eyes dead on, never wavering. "I think it was clear to all of us what your plan was. To sacrifice yourself in the arena so that Katniss Everdeen and your child could survive."

The baby. Peeta wonders how District 13 had used that. Does everybody know it was a lie? Obviously not, or else Caesar wouldn't be playing that card for the Capitol audience. What had they said then? That Katniss had gotten rid of it? That she had lost it?

Peeta stops thinking about it. He doesn't care what they did to his fake child with Katniss, all he cares about is watching his words so that she doesn't get in trouble.

But how could she not, he thinks, when he's about to call for a cease-fire?

_Keep it short, keep it simple, keep it safe._

"That was it, clear and simple." Peeta agreed, but can't resist taking a jab at Haymitch and all of the possible District 13 officials watching this. "But other people had plans as well."

Have they explained it all to you, Katniss? Peeta wonders. Does she understand, or is she just playing along in this new brand of Games, trying to keep them both alive?

Like he's trying to do. Because that's what they did. They protected each other.

"Why don't you tell us about the last night in the arena?" Caesar suggests, and Peeta's eyes shoot up from the arm of the chair to meet his. Caesar, the most famous host in the world, who always, always uses the Games as a way of keeping the topic safe. Because what could he say about the Games that nobody knows already? Everyone's seen it-

-and that's when he thinks of it. When words fill his mind, causing it to spin and for him to think ahead to what should be said, what would make an impact.

What would get people to stop and actually _listen?_

They don't need to hear about it again. They don't need him to retell the Quarter Quell.

They need to _feel_ it. To understand.

He hopes Katniss would approve. He hopes she'll be okay, because he knows the words that will inevitably follow this are risky.

He hopes she'll still try to fight for him.

"Help us sort a few things out," Caesar continues.

Peeta nods and, after a second's hesitation, begins to speak, carefully thought out sentences making their way up his throat and past his lips, out into the air for everyone in the world with access to a television screen to see and hear.

"That last night... to tell you about that last night... well, first of all you have to imagine how it felt in the arena."

And he speaks. He tells everybody everything he felt in that place, he tells them the sounds, the sights, the smells and the tastes. The helplessness and the relief. He tries to speak like he paints. Just a few careful strokes and you have an outline. An outline makes ideas.

But it's the details- the merging of colours, the little symbols hidden away in the painting- that truly make the picture come to life. It's those things that touch you.

Peeta speaks like he paints. Descriptive and without holding back, because if he holds back he might as well be lying. No, for everybody who wasn't there to truly get it, to really understand... there must be nothing but truth and exquisite, exact detail from him.

He tries to paint the picture for the Capitol, for the rebels and for the remaining victors. But most of all, he tries to paint a picture for President Snow. Because if Snow understands than everybody else will too.

Snow once told Katniss to convince the Districts she loved Peeta. He once told her that, to stop from falling short, she should aim higher to make sure she reaches her mark. She should aim to make him realize she loved Peeta.

And maybe she succeeded, finally. Maybe that's why Peeta's here, because Snow thinks to hurt Peeta is to hurt Katniss. But Katniss was too late in convincing everybody and everything is now a mess.

But Peeta tries that now, tries to aim high so he won't fall short of his true goal. If he can reach President Snow and work his way in his brain, then he might have a bit of power.

He tries to succeed where Katniss failed. He tries to reach the impenetrable snake who is the President of Panem.

He might succeed. Peeta couldn't tell you. All he knows is, by the end of his little speech, Caesar and everybody else in that room are dead quiet, staring at him with a mixture of horror, realization and shock on their faces.

Maybe he did reach his goal.

"...As bad as it makes you feel, you're going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it's very costly." Peeta pauses, gives Caesar a chance to jump in.

The host does, after a moment, after he regains himself. "It costs your life." Caesar says.

Peeta resists the urge to laugh. His life? Why, if that was all, Peeta was sure not many people would have lived to be Victors. No, your life is nothing once you are raised up into the arena. Your life is less than nothing, but still, it's what you fight for.

And isn't that strange? Peeta muses. 73, possibly 74 if Katniss did so, fought for their lives in the Hunger Games. Only their lives. Nothing else.

But Peeta, the 75th, only fought for Katniss's. Because he realized, before everything went to hell little more than a year ago, that your life isn't what the Games costed you.

_Keep it short, __keep it simple, keep it safe._

_But make it memorable._

"Oh, no." Peeta says. "It costs a lot more than your life. To kill innocent people? It costs _everything that you are_."

And it's after he utters that last sentence that he gets the reaction he wants.

Somebody drops a clipboard at the words, Caesar leans back, as if to avoid them altogether. Silence meets him and people are stunned. Stunned at the confession, at the honesty and the power four simple words hold.

Everything that you are.

Stunned that somebody, after 75 years, has pointed out the true cost the Hunger Games has for it's people.

"Everything that you are." Caesar repeats, quieter than before.

But Peeta isn't finished yet and now he sees everyone in the room leaning forward, as if to hear better when their only a mere 6 feet or so away. "So you hold on to your wish. And that last night, yes, my wish was to save Katniss. But even without knowing about the rebels, it didn't feel right. Everything was too complicated. I found myself regretting I hadn't run off with her earlier in the day, as she had suggested. But there was no getting out of it at that point."

"You were too caught up in Beetee's plan to electrify the salt lake." Caesar stated.

Peeta's anger flares suddenly. "Too busy playing allies with the others. I should have never let them separate us!" Peeta snaps, the memories coming back to him now as well, pressing on his mind, worming their way to the forefront of his brain. Her face, her eyes, her lips, her warmth, the plea and knowledge in those eyes when she told him they had to leave, the confusion he felt, the uncertainty when he told her to stay. "That's when I lost her," Peeta said.

It wasn't when the lightning struck the tree. It wasn't when someone cut the Beetee's wire. It was when he refused to leave with her. When he was too scared of the unknown things in the woods.

That's when everything became total and utter chaos. After the beach, everything moved so quickly it was impossible to find another time to be alone with her.

Peeta wishes that he had. He wishes that he could have told her, just once, that he loved her. He would have done it like he'd always imagined. With her standing in front of him, a sheath of arrows over her shoulder, her bow hanging by her side gripped tightly in her hand. He would have leaned forward and brushed back those few strands of hair that always escaped her braid. He would have carefully put them behind her ear. Then he would have leaned forward and placed his lips right next to her ear and said those three words.

She would have believed him that time, he knows. He would have finally convinced her. Shown her that it wasn't because of the Games.

He's not sure what she would have done after that- kiss him probably- but she wouldn't have said it back.

Because love is dangerous for her, and he knows that. When Katniss loves someone it's with everything she has and she devotes her entire being to them. Peeta doesn't know if Katniss loves him or not, and he doesn't know how she feels about Gale.

Prim is the only person in the world Peeta is sure Katniss loves. Prim, her father before he died and, for a couple of days, Rue.

Caesar, unlike Peeta, isn't wrapped up in his own thoughts. He continues with the questioning, the prompting, and brings Peeta back to reality.

Peeta is still here, in the Capitol. Sitting on this chair. Being interviewed for the entire world to see.

"When you stayed at the lightning tree, and she and Johanna Mason took the coil of wire down to the water."

Johanna. Right.

Peeta must behave. He has to. If he doesn't Johanna will be tortured worse than now. And Katniss. Katniss could be spared if he keeps his temper.

But he can't help but feel heat rise to his cheek from anger and the unfairness of it all.

"I didn't want to! But I couldn't argue with Beetee without indicating we were about to break away from the alliance. When that wire was cut, everything just went insane. I can only remember bits and pieces. Trying to find her. Watching Brutus kill Chaff. Killing Brutus myself. I know she was calling my name. Then the lightning bolt hit the tree, and the force field around the arena... blew out."

"Katniss blew it out, Peeta." Caesar replies, watching him. "You've seen the footage."

Yes, he had. In one of his many sessions with strangers, they showed him those last ten minutes, trying to convince him that Katniss knew about the Rebellion.

He can see what Caesar's trying to do here, and he won't let him. He won't let the man imply to everybody watching that Katniss was a part of this, because she wasn't. She had no idea.

Neither of them had any idea.

Because he saw the footage, but he didn't see what the man was trying to show him. He didn't see cold, efficient, calculated movements. He saw confusion and hesitation. He saw uncertainty and he saw when Katniss heard Finnick's words _"Remember who the real enemy is" _and saw the bangle from Haymithch, he saw her glance at the wire and Beetee's unconscious figure on the ground beside his makeshift spear.

He saw her as she tried to figure it out.

Why? Because he can read Katniss, and obviously Snow's officials couldn't. If they could, he knows they would never assume she had the slightest clue what to do in that arena.

So he replies back in a biting tone. "She didn't know what she was doing. None of us could follow Beetee's plan. You can see her trying to figure out what to do with that wire."

"All right. It just looks suspicious. As if she was part of the rebel's plan all along."

Before Peeta's fully aware of what he's doing he's up and out of his chair, bending over with his hands on the arm rests of Caesar's, staring the man straight in the face, daring him to say anything more with the look in his eye.

Because he's angry, so angry, and he momentarily forgets to keep his temper, even with Katniss and Johanna on the line.

"Really? And was it part of her plan for Johanna to really kill her? For the electric shock to paralyze her? To trigger the bombing?" Peeta's speaking louder, on the verge of yelling, and his voice gets even louder as he continues. "She didn't know, Caesar. Neither of us knew anything other than that we were trying to keep each other alive!"

That's all they were doing. Trying to save one another.

It seems Peeta did his job better than Katniss did.

He's panting, staring directly into the guy's eyes, and he sees fear there. Just for a second, but it's long enough.

Good. He's sick of being underestimated.

Caesar slowly places a hand on Peeta's chest, putting a little pressure behind it. Immediately Peeta pulls away, almost ashamed at what's he's just done.

And suddenly he's tired, oh so tired. He wants to go home to his father and brothers, and even his mother. He wants to see Katniss again, wants to feel her, because he's not sure she would be real. He wants to bring Prim peppermints and watch Katniss's face soften ever so slightly as her little sister enjoys them, and he wants...

He wants, he wants, he wants.

He wants to not be the Capitol's pawn. He wants for everybody he cares about to be safe. He wants Katniss to love him.

Peeta's tired. Of being here, of being used, of being tortured. He's close to breaking, he knows it, but he also knows he can't break. If he does... who will be there to pick up the pieces?

He's alone here. He has no friends in this place. He has to stay strong.

"Okay, Peeta," Caesar says gently. "I believe you."

He doesn't, not completely, but the doubt in his eyes is enough to make Peeta regain his composure and sits down once more.

"Okay," he says, running his hands through the hair it had taken almost a half hour for his prep team to do. Not long compared to how long Katniss's prepping used to take, but longer than usual for him since they'd had to give him a haircut before this.

He can feel Caesar's eyes on him and glances up, barely, in time to see him ask, "What about your mentor, Haymitch Abernathy?

Peeta tenses immediately. Haymitch obviously knew about the Rebellion, Peeta knows this for a fact. Haymitch saved Katniss but abandoned Peeta for the Capitol to do whatever they wanted to him.

He's not mad, exactly. He knows why Katniss needed to be saved before him, why she was the priority. But he's a little hurt because even if he'd never pretended to be close to his mentor, he'd thought they had some sort of friendship.

Haymitch saved Katniss, Beetee and Finnick over him, and while Peeta can understand Katniss being rescued, and maybe even Beetee- for his brains, of course- he is a little hurt that Finnick was a higher priority than himself.

He could have helped the rebels, he knows this. He was always the talker and he'd always been able to get through to Katniss better than Haymitch.

So yes, he's bitter towards Haymitch. But the man is smart, brains has always been Haymitch's weapon, even in the Quarter Quell, and Peeta knows he has some sort of plan.

He can't let his personal feelings affect what he says when it comes to Haymitch.

"I don't know what Haymitch knew," Peeta replies, trying to sound as emotionless as possible.

"Could he have been part of the Rebellion?"

Yes. "He never mentioned it."

Caesar's look is calculating now, trying to figure out a way to get a good answer out of him. "What does your heart tell you?"

That he lied to both of us, Peeta thought. Both me and Katniss.

"That I shouldn't have trusted him," he says instead, making sure to stop anymore questions in this area. "That's all."

Caesar pats Peeta's shoulder, suddenly acting sympathetic. He's figured out the Peeta won't give him anything more, not today at least. "We can stop now if you want."

"Was there more to discuss?" Peeta asks tiredly.

"I was going to ask your thoughts on the war, but if you're too upset..." Caesar trails off suggestively and Peeta knows this is his cue, his personal reminder from Snow of what he had to do today.

"Oh, I'm not too upset to answer that." He says and takes a deep breath, trying to collect himself and think of the best words to use. What could do the least amount of damage and still get his point across? "I want everyone watching- whether you're on the Capitol or the rebel side- to stop for a moment and think about what this war could mean. For human beings. We almost went extinct fighting one another before. Now our numbers are even fewer. Or conditions more tenuous. Is this really what we want to do? Kill ourselves off completely? In the hopes that- what? Some decent species will inherit the remains of the earth?"

"I don't really... I'm not sure I'm following." Caesar says, but Peeta sees that Caesar knows exactly what he's saying. But Caesar has orders from Snow as well and Peeta's words haven't been specific enough, they haven't made a clear statement. Caesar doesn't need Peeta to be more specific, but the audience and Snow does, because he needs to be clear and concise. There has to be no doubt in what he's asking, his words have to in no way be misconstrued by the rebels.

"We can't fight one another, Caesar," Peeta says, trying hard to avoid saying what he's saying head on. Think of Katniss, protect Katniss, do what Snow wants. "There won't be enough of us left to keep going. If everybody lays down their weapons- and I mean as in _very soon_- it's all over anyway."

"So... you're calling for a cease-fire?"

And there it is, there's no way for Peeta to avoid saying it now. He sighs and hopes Katniss and the rebels will forgive him, hopes that Snow is true to his word and keeps his promise to keep Katniss safe if he says this. "Yes. I'm calling for a cease-fire." He says finally, closing his eyes for a moment and deciding that he's done, he doesn't want to do this anymore. He said the biggest thing Snow wanted him to say. A personal message to Katniss won't be happening today. "Now why don't we ask my guards to take me back to my quarters so I can build another hundred card houses?"

Caesar turns back to the camera and Peeta relaxed back against the chair as he says goodbye to the audience. He's done it, he kept his side of the deal.

But he knows Snow won't be happy, because even Peeta knows his call for a cease-fire will be ignored. A cease-fire would leave everything exactly where it was before and the rebels won't stop now just because he asked them to.

"Thank you, Peeta." Caesar says, as they both stand up, Peeta's guard appearing behind him as he obediently brought his wrists together behind his back, ready to be cuffed once more.

Peeta doesn't know what he's being thanked for, not sure Caesar knows himself, but he nods tiredly anyway. "Goodbye, Caesar."

Now he doesn't know if he's saying goodbye for now or goodbye forever, but Peeta knows he'll find out soon enough.

Without another word the guard brings a strong hand to his shoulder and steers Peeta out of the room, back to his quarters just as he'd asked.

Back to building card houses and waiting to be ordered around once more.

Peeta's not sure if he'd rather be dead.

oooOOOooo

He understands now why animals don't like to be caged.

It drives you absolutely crazy, because all you do is wait and do the same thing over and over again. He's built so many card houses his hands and fingers moved even when he's not holding cards. His mind is growing lazy, he's forgetting things, names, dates, places. It's just little things at first, the name to the face of a fellow student at school he's passed in the hallways a couple of times. How old he was when his brother accidentally dropped a sack of flour on him, cracking a rib as it landed on his stomach.

He doesn't worry about it. Doesn't even notice.

But when he forgets whether Mrs. Marks taught him his second year in school or his third, he starts to get concerned. He should know that. He spent a year with the woman, he should know what grade she taught him.

Still though, he's not actually scared until he forgets his own birthday.

It's not an important day in their District, not even really to his family. In the Capitol, birthdays are another excuse to celebrate and party, Peeta knows. But in District 12 you get a hug from your father, a kiss on the cheek from your mother- if she's in a good mood- and a bigger portion than the rest of your family does for supper. It's not important, not really, but Peeta should _know_ his own birthday.

No matter how long he thinks about it, he can't remember. He knows it's in May. At least he's pretty sure.

But he can't remember the day.

And then he's scared, truly scared, because he knows now this is the beginning to him losing his mind. This is from being caged, from doing nothing all day, every day for more than a month. The most exercise Peeta gets is walking to an interrogation room from his cell.

He needs to get his brain working again, he needs to get his blood flowing, his muscles burning. His body is dying, slowly, and Peeta can suddenly feel it weakening.

He panics, for just a moment, but it's enough to get him to realize he has to do something.

He starts to exercise. Running in place, or from one wall to the other in his small space. He does push ups, sit ups, jumping jacks, knee lifts and step ups on his bed. He holds himself up on his arms for at least five minutes at a time and moves, constantly.

His body starts working, getting stronger, but his mind stays the same. He keeps forgetting small details, so Peeta suddenly starts a mantra for himself, trying to help him remember.

"I'm Peeta Mellark, winner of the 74th Hunger Games with Katniss Everdeen. I am in the Capitol. I am in love with Katniss. I do not know if Katniss loves me back. I was taken captive after the 3rd Quarter Quell by Snow. The Districts are rebelling against him and the Capitol government. I have two brothers and no sisters and my parents owned the bakery. I lived in District 12. There is no District 12 anymore. I want to go home. Why has nobody come to take me home?"

He says this to himself, starting with things he's sure of, working up to things he's not so sure of. It helps, a little, but still, he needs books or paper and a pen to write with. He needs constant conversation, not occasional talks with Ouranos and Claudia. He needs freedom and more space and he needs to wash daily instead of once a week, sometimes two.

When Effie comes into his room one day he's not sure if he's finally gone truly mad or if she's real.

He's not sure, until he sees the bruises.

Peeta's never seen Effie's real hair before. Haymitch has, he knows, he told him one night on the Victory Tour when he was drunk. Peeta knew it was blonde, but he imagined it fake and dyed, either too bright or bleached. Instead it's natural looking, a strawberry blonde, and shiny. It reaches just past her shoulders,

She doesn't have any makeup on, no wigs or fancy clothing, but she's Effie, most definitely. Those are Effie's hands and Effie's eyes and Peeta can't stop himself from walking towards her quickly and hugging her so hard his newly worked muscles bulge slightly in his arms.

Because even if Effie is Capitol, she's not _Capitol_. Effie is different, has always been different, and Peeta saw it right away. She loves Capitol things, the money, the makeup, the clothes, but she's a real person underneath it all, unlike most of the others. Effie's hand is the hand that pulls names at the Reaping and the one who had helped talk to Peeta some nights on the train about Haymitch and Katniss.

Effie is the one who has helped keep Haymitch, Katniss and him safe, helped keep them from stepping too far over the invisible, uncross-able line. Effie is the one who cares more for Katniss and Peeta than their own mothers do.

He can't help but like her, maybe even think of her fondly, as a sort of distant family. She's like an aunt he could have had, fussing and nitpicking, but looking out for him all the same.

He's not sure she's real, not a hallucination, until she lets out a pained yelp at his hug.

He steps away immediately and then he sees the bruises. Peeking out a fraction of an inch above her shirt, on her back, her wrists. He wouldn't have seen them at all if his hug hadn't shifted her shirt, but it did, and he does, and he's reminded of exactly where they are and who's keeping them here and what that man can do.

He's hurt Effie, or ordered his people to, and Peeta feels rage.

"Effie, you're hurt," is the first thing he says.

She covers her wrists and shrugs her shoulders slightly, covering the top of her chest to hide grey, purple, blue and black marks. "No, dear, I'm fine."

But Effie and Peeta have always had a way of communicating, and he sees the lie in her eyes. He sees that she wants him to see it.

He nods, but grips her hands instead, tightly, trying to offer comfort and make sure she stays at the same time. "You're here," he breathes. "I wasn't sure, I thought you might have gotten out."

He has no doubt that this conversation is being watched closely, listened to and possibly recorded, but he doesn't care. It's been so long since he's seen somebody familiar, someone he trusts and _cares about_, that he's almost babbling with relief.

Effie smiles bitterly. "Why would you ever think that?"

"I thought maybe Haymitch..." He falters when Effie's grip tightens painfully for a second, he pauses at the warning in her eyes.

No, he can't say anything more, he should have known. He can't give them any reason to hurt Effie any worse- and they would, Peeta knows Snow would- if he thought it would hurt Haymitch.

"Why would you think that?" Effie laughs, the fake 'Escort' mask taking her over for a moment. It's her defense, her only weapon, Peeta knows, the fakeness. The lying. "Haymitch and I hate each other, dear, or have you forgotten those insufferable days on the train with us together?"

Peeta's lips twitch, and his brain is jarred back into action enough for him to play along convincingly. "With you two screaming at each other constantly I can hardly forget," he teases slightly. "Whenever you tried to hide the liquor, or he spilled wine on your dress."

"Didn't even apologize," Effie clucks her tongue. "Rudest man I ever met."

For a second they smile, lost in better times, even if Peeta had still been on his way to die back then. But then he sees someone, a shape of a figure, standing outside his door and his smile drops.

"Why are you here, Effie?"

Her smile drops as well, before she plasters a bright, fake one on. "Snow thought you might like to see me."

There's a message there, one that's hidden, one he tries to find. But he doesn't understand, so he presses her. "Why?"

He sees the calculating she's doing, trying to figure out what's safe to say and what isn't. He and Effie are good at knowing when to choose your words carefully.

"He thought you might like to know that I'm here with you," she said slowly. "He said it would be nice for you to see a familiar face."

His grip tightens again when he realizes what she's really trying to say. Snow wanted Peeta to know that he has Effie here, and he will hurt her if he steps out of line.

Snow must want him to make a public appearance again. Or something along those lines. Why else would he need to send this sneaky, sly message of warning?

Effie must see something in his eyes because determination fills her face, for just a moment. "Don't worry about me." She said sharply before smiling. "I'm being perfectly well taken care of. Don't worry. I'm fine. I will be fine."

Snow's message: Behave, or he'll hurt Effie.

Effie's message: Don't stop fighting just to spare her. Don't play nice. She can handle it. She'll understand.

Peeta's heart almost breaks. Here is his escort, who he once thought annoying and brainless, telling him she might be tortured if he does something stupid, and she's okay with that. Telling him she will bear it and handle it as best she can because she knows it's to protect the other half of their team. The other half of their family.

He doesn't know what Snow will want him to do next, but he knows it must be more important than his last interview with Caesar if he's using Effie when he didn't before.

Peeta just nods to show he understands and Effie does what she does best. She distracts their listeners with her mindless chatter about meaningless things, prattling on and on with him jumping in occasionally to comment or laugh. He never lets go of her hands and when the guards come back in his room to collect her less than ten minutes later he manages to get one last quick hug before she is led away.

But she looks back at him when she reaches the door, and there's sadness and regret in her eyes and a small, soft smile on her face when she does, and Peeta turns the moment he can't see her anymore and punches a wall.

His knuckles bleed, but he doesn't care. His bones bruise and ache, but he numbs himself to it.

This is a mind game, and he can't have his mind turning sluggish and useless. Not now. Not now that he knows Effie's here and she is in very real danger of being hurt.

He needs to be able to keep up with Snow and to do that he needs his mind to be sharp and fast.

Peeta keeps exercising, keeps reciting his mantra, and tests his brain with stupid silly questions that work to keep it active anyway. He talks more to Ouranos and Claudia, gets them to ask him silly little riddles and mind puzzles to keep active and alert.

It helps, but Peeta still feels hopelessly unprepared and outsmarted.

oooOOOooo

They start to skip meals.

He doesn't notice at first, but after it happens three days in a row he realizes he's not getting anything for breakfast anymore.

He shrugs it off, rationalizes it to himself. The Capitol is having food shortages with the rebellion, he's sure. They're just preserving food for the actual citizens and government officials. He's still getting enough at lunch and dinner to last him through the day, it's okay. He doesn't need breakfast.

He rationalizes it to himself and shrugs it off.

But then he starts not getting supper either, and he's really starting to wonder. Even worse, his lunch portions are growing smaller, smaller until, a couple of weeks after Effie was brought in to see him, all he gets is a slice of bread and half a bowl of something he guesses is supposed to be soup, but is, in fact, just warm water with a few pieces of carrot, slimy green vegetables and a couple of bite sized pieces of sinewy meat.

He eats it anyway. When you come from District 12 you learn to eat whatever you can get. Peeta's lived off of stale bread for 16 years before his games, the bread he can handle.

But this last year, being a victor, has made him less accustomed to hunger than he realized. He's been able to have fresh, filling food whenever he wanted it for the last year, he's never been hungry for more than a few seconds unless you count the Quarter Quell.

Peeta has lost his ability to cope well with hunger.

But he hasn't forgotten what it was like. He can survive on this, one meal a day. As long as he gets drink and food every day he'll live, no matter how little. He'll lose weight, yes, a lot of it, but he'll live.

He wonders if it's even worth it anymore, before he berates himself for the thought. Someone could come and save him. The war has to end soon. He could see Katniss again. He could escape, somehow, someday.

All of these are slim to none chances, but if he stops eating they won't happen at all. He'll take slim to none over outright no chance any day.

He loses a lot of weight, and eventually he doesn't have strength to keep doing his exercises. He asks Ouranos and Claudia if there's suddenly huge food shortages in the Capitol. They tell him no, with a sorrowful and guilty look in their eyes. He asks if they might be able to inquire about him getting a little more.

They agree, and one night when both of them switch with fresh guards, they tell him their going to go and ask their superior if they can bring him some more food. Even from their own pantries, they tell him, they'll bring him at least a couple of slices of bread with jam or butter.

He is so grateful he almost cries, and he knows his strength is leaching out of him slowly. It's then he knows how desperate he is.

But Claudia and Ouranos don't come back.

They've been gone for no longer than an entire night shift before, so Peeta immediately starts to worry.

After two days he asks the new guard on his left, a stony, brutal looking man who is both taller and wider than him, where his old guards are.

It's several minutes before the man responds.

"They were executed."

Peeta hears a gasp and realizes a second later it's his own breath leaving his body in a desperate exhale. "Why?" He whispers against the bars of the head height hole in the door.

The man turns his head, meets his eyes for a second, long enough to say six words.

"For trying to aid a prisoner."

Peeta turns and doesn't even have strength to walk back to his bed. He just sinks right where he is, sliding back against the door to collapse on the ground, legs out in front of him, hands shaking.

And the shaking doesn't stop.

oooOOOooo

Peeta is once more brought to see President Snow.

He's brought to see President Snow in a dark room with one wall completely glass. But it's a strange glass, one Peeta's only seen on television in the Capitol, in their strange action/drama TV shows. It's one-sided, and Peeta knows he and President Snow can see through it, but the woman eventually brought in that's on the other side can't see them.

He's tied to a simple wooden chair and the walls are dark black, as if the floor. There's dim light coming from bulbs hanging from the ceiling and the entire place feels _damp_.

In front of him, in front of Snow, is a desk that goes the entire length of the glass wall. But it's not really a desk, it's covered in hundreds of lights and buttons and it's obviously some sort of control booth. It only reaches waist height but it looks incredibly imposing and dangerous to Peeta.

Snow thanks Peeta's guards after they tie him up, after they yank his struggling form and pin him there, and motions for them both to go.

"Since you're not giving me what I want," Snow says calmly, standing in front of him, "I've decided to go about this another way."

"Are you going to hurt me?" Peeta asks dully.

He doesn't care anymore. He's started to be beaten during interrogation and his entire body hurts. Bruises cover him. But they haven't hit his face, or his arms and hands, and he's sure it's because he'll eventually end up on the filming end of a camera again.

"No, no." Snow says. "Me beating somebody up? So messy and unrewarding." He smiles slightly. "I don't want to get my hands dirty, you see. No, I won't hurt you, Peeta. I just want you to watch something with me."

He's immediately wary. "What?"

Snow just smiles and moved to press one of the many buttons on the control desk. "Bring her in," Snow orders while holding the white fingerprint sized button down.

A slight woman is brought in, but Peeta doesn't know who it is because there's a black bag over her head. She's pushed to step up onto a metal step and turn until she's pressing back on a human shaped table that stands upright. She's strapped in by her legs, ankles, wrists, torso and upper arms. Heavy leather straps that are each two inches thick at the least and buckled with metal. She's fighting the entire time and probably screaming curses and insults by the look of it.

Peeta has an idea of who the woman is, but he's not sure until the nameless man who's strapped in on the device rips the black bag off of her head.

"Johann!" He screams, his voice slightly hoarse from all the disuse. "Johanna!"

Even though this woman almost killed Katniss by leaving her to possibly bleed to death, Peeta has the need to talk to her, to see a friendly face, even if it is only this woman's. Johanna is a rebel, Peeta has no doubt, but she's also a victor and she and Peeta have more common ground than one might think.

It's been so long since Peeta's seen Effie, he is so lonely and secluded here, even Johanna brings him comfort.

At least he wasn't the only victor left behind. He wasn't the only one deemed worthless and not worth the risk of coming back for.

"She can't hear you." Snow says before bringing a piece of cloth out of his pocket and moving towards him. "But for when she can..."

Before Peeta could close his mouth from another scream, Snow's stuck the gag into it, his hand as quick as a snake striking it's prey. In and out safely.

Peeta wishes he'd bit it off.

He stops for a second, breathes deeply through his nose, in and out, in and out.

He almost gags because the scent of roses and blood is so strong in here, in this constricted space with the snake himself, and it is absolutely sickening. It makes Peeta's empty stomach roil, it makes him feel like he'd puke if he had anything to throw up.

He can't speak, not with the gag taking up his entire mouth, filling it. He tries but nothing but quiet whimpers and strangled sounds escape and Snow smirks and nods in approval. "Good."

He presses down the white button and Johanna's voice fills the room.

"You filthy little midget, when I get my axe back I'll bury it in your face and-"

"Hello, Johanna."

Snow's voice is perfectly polite and Johanna stops talking and struggling for a second to listen to him. Obviously she can hear him now, but can't see him, and Peeta tries to speak again but isn't loud enough.

"Snow." Johanna says, a predator smile curling up her lips. "I'm surprised you're here yourself. Am I really important enough for you to come and torture me in person?"

"Would that be so hard to believe, Ms. Mason?"

"Oh, Johanna, please, we're old friends aren't we?" She says to him.

Snow's lip twitches. "I have a friend of yours in here with me." He tells her patiently, ignoring her request to call each other by their first names.

"I don't have any friends, you made sure of that." Johanna replied before tilting her head slightly. "Where are you, anyway? Why can't I see you?"

"You may be important enough for me to personally torture, Johanna, but you are not important enough for me to actually disclose my location to. Only Mr. Mellark gets that honor."

Johanna is quiet for less than a second as his words fall onto her ears and Peeta struggles against the ropes, feeling scrapes as they rub against his wrists. "Peeta? Peeta's there?"

She doesn't sound vicious or condescending anymore. Instead she sounds worried and Peeta is touched for a moment at her concern before she covers it up. "What are you doing to him?" She demands. "Why can't I hear him too?"

"He's a little tied up at the moment," Snow says smoothly. "No, but we're not here for Mr. Mellark, we're here for you, Ms. Mason. For him to watch you."

Johanna snorts. "Watch me do what, be strapped to a table? Wow, I'm sure he's thrilled. Am I entertaining enough? Is he riveted as he watches me, can't tear his eyes away? He's probably asleep he's so bored."

"You think this is what I have planned for you?" Snow says, and Johanna looks around again, trying to pinpoint the source of his voice. "Oh no, this is merely so you can't get away."

"Get away?" Johanna asks. "How could I get away, you've trapped me in a prison cell."

"Well, there was that little incident with the guards the other day," Snow said. "And I've learned over the years not to underestimate my... opponents, you might say."

"What, when I smashed that guys head against a wall?" Johanna asks, completely unconcerned, and Peeta flinches. "If I could take him down as easily as that then you need to get better guards."

"Leave that up to me, Ms. Mason. However, we had to wait until the tranquilizer was completely out of your system for this. Wouldn't want you to not be able to experience everything, or be numbed off, would we?"

Peeta tries to scream, a warning, something, but it's no good and even if Johanna had heard she's trapped where she is.

Both of them are helpless.

"Experience what?" Johanna asks. "What are you going to do? Where's Peeta?"

Snow smiles again and Peeta knows he heard the layer of fear in Johanna's voice as clear as he did. "Ah, ah, ah." He admonishes. "No more questions."

He presses another button then and Peeta see waters emerge from a foot wide hole near the bottom of the wall in a corner of Johanna's prison. She sees it too and snorts, obviously unimpressed even as water starts to pool and rise quickly.

"What, you're going to drown me?" Johanna says. "Am I supposed to be scared, Mr. President?"

Her tone is mocking once more and Snow bares his teeth for a moment before recomposing himself. "Oh no. Just wait, Ms. Mason. Wait for the surprise."

The surprise comes when she's shoulder deep in water. By the way her teeth chatter it's obviously freezing, but that's not the worst of it.

Snow presses a button and electricity zaps across the waters surface, zigzagging anyway it can and hitting Johanna, circling her and encompassing her.

And she screams. Loud and long and tortured, she screams. First in fear and then in pain.

"Listen, Peeta, listen to her." President Snow turns starts to walk around him in circles, staring at him relentlessly, a manic glint in his eye. For the first time Peeta wonders if Snow isn't just ruthless but, in fact, absolutely insane.

He's brought back by Johanna's voice, and the sick thing is, he _can_ hear Johanna screaming. He hears her scream and he hears the sound of the water and then, even more sickening, he hears the sound of electricity again and see the flares as it arcs across the waters surface.

He closes his eyes but it doesn't help. He's already seen; and there's nothing he can do to block the sounds.

Her screams are full of agony, they are wails of someone being tortured and Peeta knows he'll never forget them. She screams, long and raw, full of pain and fear, and Peeta cringes away from it, tries to lift his hands to covers his ears but he can't because his hands are tied.

The screams become choked and bloody and Peeta loses track of time. He listens to Johanna scream for hours and hours and Snow finally stops.

"Have you had enough, Ms. Mason?"

She's crying and her breathing is ragged, but her teeth aren't chattering anymore. She's flushed and red and her skin is steaming. Her head flops to the side, hanging, and Peeta understands how she feels. He understands not having enough strength to even hold your head up high anymore.

"Go. To. Hell."

Peeta's surprised at the words, surprised at how loud they are. Johanna's voice is ragged and scratched, she sounds pitiful, but there's one note of resolution and determination that fills the room, reaches both Peeta and Snow's ears, that is undeniable.

Tears, silent tears, are streaming down Peeta's face and with one movement of his tongue he pushes the gag out of his mouth. Snow is staring at the half-dead woman in the room in front of him, pressing down on his little white button, and doesn't notice.

Gathering everything he can, Peeta screams as loud as he can. "Johanna!"

Her head moves sluggishly, but it does move. He screams her name again, and then once more, before Snow finally thinks to pull his finger off the button.

"Baring!" Snow barks and the guard from before enters the room. Snow eyes Peeta before turning away. "Beat him."

Before the first blow Snow presses the button and speaks to Johanna, cutting off her tirade.

"-Peeta? What have you done with him, Snow, you son-of-a-bitch, they're going to kill you, Katniss will tear you apart-"

"We've heard your screams, Ms. Mason." Snow says. "Now I'll let you hear Peeta's as well. It's only fair after all."

"I'd rather hear your screams you-"

But the guard named Baring hits Peeta, square in his upper thigh, and Peeta physically feels his bones move under the pressure.

He can't help but scream.

"Again." Snow orders.

Baring hits him harder, in the ribs, and Peeta cries out again.

"Peeta!" Johanna is now screaming his name but Peeta can hardly make it out because suddenly his eyes are tearing, his ears are ringing, and he feel metal bite into him. In his ribs, his stomach, his arms, his legs, his ankle.

"Again."

Phwap!

"Again."

Peeta screams, long and loud, and Johanna screams, curses, thrashes and yells bloody murder.

It does neither of them any good.

"Again."

It becomes all Peeta hears, until he doesn't hear at all anymore. Screams, whistles of something flying through the air (a belt? a whip?) and Snow's voice, over and over, rhythmic and constant.

"Again."

Peeta passes out but even then they don't stop hitting him.

He wakes up when a guard drops him in the middle of a new room, a different room, and screams from the pain of falling onto his broken and battered body.

He passes out again.

oooOOOooo

He doesn't move for a couple of days.

His new cell is what cells look like in his nightmares. Water dripping from unknown places on the ceiling, a drain in the center of the floor, dark, damp and cold. He gets no food for a few days, doesn't even manage to get up to urinate, just does it all over himself. His hands are still shaking, haven't stopped, and right there he decides he wants to die.

He wonders if Johanna's okay. He wonders if Snow killed her.

He's jealous of her if he did. Peeta wants to die. Right now he wants it more than anything, because then at least the pain would go away.

He can't even think of what he wants more than death. He doesn't think of a girl with a braid, a bow and grey eyes from the Seam. Not here, not in his state. He doesn't think of her there.

A couple of days after the time spent with Snow and Johanna, Peeta jerks awake to the feeling of cold, freezing cold.

He's being sprayed by a hose.

After the water stops he lays shivering on the floor. Someone speaks, walks to stand beside him, but Peeta doesn't understand what they're saying to him.

He's yanked up roughly and he cries out again.

He's dragged from his room and put into a shower.

This water, while only lukewarm, feels like Heaven. Peeta wants to drown in it because even though the spray stings- he's been bleeding, he realizes distantly- it's the nicest thing he's felt in weeks.

Someone pulls him out of the shower.

He's given a change of clothes. He obediently changes into them.

He's taken to the stage room again and he's almost blinded from everything. Compared to the darkness of his most recent living quarters this is like looking directly into the sun.

Everyone gets very quiet at the sight of him.

His makeup was done quickly by strangers. Peeta assumes his prep team is now dead.

Dead or being tortured.

Peeta looks at his feet as he walks, and every step hurts him. He's not even shackled right now, he's too pathetic to even pose a threat to the weakest person in the room.

He only realizes who he's been walked up to when he sees the white suit and smells the blood and roses.

"A personal message to Katniss convincing her to stop fighting and Johanna will never be subjected to the activities of two days ago ever again, Mr. Mellark. Katniss will be spared, you will be left alone and Effie and Johanna will be freed."

Peeta barely raises his head to meet the man's eyes. "Please." Is all he says.

Snow's smile is quick and triumphant. He thinks he's won.

Maybe he has.

"Behave, Mr. Mellark." Snow says. "For the sake of your loved ones."

He walks to go and speak to Caesar, obviously instructing him on what to say.

Peeta hopes this is short. He doesn't have the strength or mindset to act normal for more than five minutes at the most.

Everything settles down very quickly. There's no smiling Caesar now, only grim determination and a scared look in Caesar's eyes whenever he looks at Peeta.

They sit in the same chairs as last time, everything is the same.

The red light blinks on and Caesar starts the conversation. "Hello again, Peeta!"

His voice is loud, too bright and cheerful. Peeta resists the urge to flinch, to shy away from it nervously.

"Caesar." Is all he manages to get out.

"It's a beautiful day today, isn't it?"

Peeta wonders what he's doing but doesn't bother to try to figure it out longer than a few seconds. He's too tired and sick of trying to make sense of lies and manipulations.

"Very." Peeta says, despite the fact that he hasn't been outside for over a month.

"Now, Peeta, we've all heard the rumors about Katniss taping some propaganda for the rebels..." Caesar starts.

No, actually, not all of us Caesar. And obviously, they're not rumors if Snow wants him to have an entire interview about them.

"...What do you think about that?"

Peeta's mind scrambles, searching for his old companion, for the words Snow will want him to use. "They're using her, obviously." He says slowly, glancing at Snow to see if he's saying the right thing. The President nods almost imperceptibly, and Peeta relaxes a bit. "To whip up the rebels." _And obviously it's working._ "I doubt she even really knows what's going on in the war. What's at stake."

He doesn't either, but if he pretends he does maybe people will believe it. His hands are still shaking, his body still feels beaten, but he's started to regain his bearings. He's used to being in front of a camera, and he's safe there. In front of a live audience, he's safe.

He knows what he has to do. He has to make it look like Katniss is innocent, that she's just a little girl too afraid to fight back. She doesn't know anything, that is his angle.

If he plays it well, there's a chance Snow could pardon her, could tell the world she was ignorant.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell her?" Caesar asks, and if that isn't the most obvious prompt in history Peeta doesn't know what is.

"There is." Peeta looks directly into the camera lens and tries to believe Katniss is on the other side, watching a screen, watching him. Listening. Worrying. "Don't be a fool, Katniss. Think for yourself." _Keep yourself safe._ "They've turned you into a weapon that could be instrumental in the destruction of humanity." _Made you into someone Snow will torture and kill without mercy if he ever gets his hands on you._ "If you've got any real influence, use it to put the brakes on this thing. Use it to stop this war before it's too late. Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you're working with? Do you really know what's going on? And if you don't... find out."

He's taken back to his cell and when he returns Johanna and Effie are laying there, both of them bruised, beaten and bloodied. Both with their hair shaved off. Their smell is despicable, the sight of their skin, with oozing scabs, is enough to make Peeta squeeze his eyes closed and ask to die.

He doesn't die.

He sits in a corner and eventually both of their eyes flutter open. Both of them groan, move slightly before hissing in pain. Effie wakes first and Peeta sees blood appear on her back, through the shirt she's wearing.

It shows up in lines. Whip lines.

Johanna stirs, mutters something inaudible, before jerking awake very suddenly. Peeta and Effie are too tired to even jump in surprise.

"You're alive." Peeta is the first to talk when each other them has met each other's eyes, and both women look at him. "I wasn't sure. But you're alive."

Effie stares at him, uncomprehending, but Johanna lets out a short bark of bitter laughter. "We're alive." She confirms before sliding down to curl up feebly in a ball on the floor- a loose ball, but pathetic all the same.

"Alive." Effie repeats and Johanna sighs. "We're alive."

"Alive and breathing," Johanna agrees. "Isn't that just a fucking disappointment."

oooOOOooo

The very next day he's taken out of his room. And he's not sure why, but it's that day he finally realizes where they are.

They aren't in Snow's mansion at all, but buried beneath ground in some hidden cell. Now he's in the training center.

He had thought that he had been moved overnight, and it seems he was right. Because they'd been in the President's mansion before, but now they're not and Peeta wasn't awake when he was transported, and neither was Effie or Johanna.

"Hello again, Mr. Mellark."

"I don't have any information."

Snow's eyes were cold, but there was a glint in them that made fear shoot through Peeta. "I believe you." The President answered calmly.

Peeta breathed out a sigh of relief. What would they do with him now? Throw him in a cell and starve him? Kill him? At this point, he thinks he wouldn't care.

"Therefore you are of no more use to me. You can offer me one last thing, Peeta, but after I take that... well, I'd be willing to drop you off right at Miss Everdeen's doorstep if I could."

The fear expanded, slightly. Snow wouldn't give him up willingly unless he gained something from it. "Dead." Peeta guessed. Dead, to try and hurt Katniss or even Haymitch, or both, one last time. One final strike.

"Oh no," Snow shook his head slowly, making the fear grow until Peeta realized his own breathing had turned labored. "I would deliver you alive and in one piece. Body, soul... and mind."

The fear grows and Peeta takes it back. He does care what Snow does to him, he's afraid and he wants to live. Because from the sadistic look in Snow's eye.. he has planned something worse than death for Peeta.

"Whatever you're planning to do," he croaks, "It won't work."

"And how could you possibly know that?"

Peeta scrapes up his last bits of strength. "Because I am in love with Katniss Everdeen." He says as loud as he can. "And nothing in this world, nothing you do, can take that away forever."

Snow's smile is sharp and cold as ice, as cutting as one of the many scalpels laying on the tray beside where Peeta's propped. "Oh, I don't need forever, Peeta," he says quietly. "Just the first ten minutes you see Ms. Everdeen again should do it I think."

Peeta's heart slows, trepidation slowly gathering in him. "What are you going to do to me?"

Snow's smile widens. "Why, it's what you're going to do for me, Peeta." He says as if it should be obvious. And then he drops a bomb that shatters Peeta's world, rattles him to his core, and blows every bit of resolve he has to pieces.

"You're going to kill Ms. Everdeen."

His mouth goes dry and foolishly he tries to swallow, tries to hold back the fear and shove it down, away, out of sight. He can't, his mouth works but nothing happens. His tongue is dead weight in his mouth.

Words still escape. "How?"

He doesn't deny it, because he's sure Snow who is ruthless and more cunning than a man should be, has figured out every little detail. He doesn't fight it because he's strapped to a chair and whatever Snow wants to do Peeta cannot stop him, no matter how hard he tries.

He doesn't give himself over to Snow's words completely, not yet, but even the possibility that they might come to pass are enough to make him wish he'd killed himself at the start. Makes him plan ways to kill himself now.

He will not hurt Katniss. He won't, he won't, he won't.

"By doing the thing you just said I couldn't." Snow's grin is evil and twisted. Sick. "I'm going to take away your love for her."

Impossible. Even in the Capitol they don't have weapons to change people's emotions. Surely, even in the Capitol, they wouldn't be so horrible to invent ways such as that.

"You... can't." He wary of telling Snow what he can and cannot do, but Peeta can think of no way the president can do what he's promised. The technology doesn't exist.

"I can," Snow promised. "And I will."

oooOOOooo

Three days later Peeta is confused and disoriented.

What is real, what is not real? He doesn't know. Some of his memories are hazy, others are shiny, shimmering orange around the edges. Others are contradictory to the shiny memories.

Strangers prod at him, inject him with needles of some sort of venom- venom he should recognize, venom that he's seen before.

_Tracker Jacker venom,_ a deep, dying part of his mind whispers to him.

But Peeta doesn't trust his mind so he doesn't believe it.

President Snow, a man who, despite his new shiny memories, Peeta hates.

Because Peeta still has some semblance of who he is. He is Peeta Mellark, the bakers boy. He lived in District 12 and won the Hunger Games with Katniss Everdeen. The President has captured him and is torturing him.

Peeta loves Katniss. No matter what the President says, no matter what they do, he loves Katniss. This is the one thing he repeats over and over, the one thing he tries to hold onto more than anything.

They can taint his memories, but he will tell himself every moment he can that _he is in love with Katniss. _He needs to beat Snow, and this is the only way he can think of to do it.

The memories are fake, he tells himself.

Katniss is out there waiting for you to come back to her.

_To kill you_, the new, growing voice in his mind whispers.

_No_, the dying part replies. _To bring you home and take care of you. To protect you, because that's what you two do for each other._

But they inject him with the venom and show images on a screen and Snow walks around him where he's tied down, strapped to a chair, and hisses words in his ear.

The Reaping. Peeta recognizes this as his first reaping.

"Katniss volunteered so she would be in the arena to have a chance to kill you," Snow hisses.

"No."

But the fear is tangible, he tastes it on his tongue, and his mind is very nearly overcome with it. It's all Peeta can do to tell himself over and over again that _this isn't real. _

He digs his wrists into the cuffs that bind him, and it helps to center him, bring him back to reality, enough to focus a little more. But it's not enough, because President Snow still circles him, waiting to strike.

"She made sure Effie Trinket pulled your name."

"No."

"She played you, wanted to gain your trust. It was all a ploy to lull you into a false sense of security so that she could kill you."

"Liar."

"She decided to wait. To prolong your torture. She orchestrated the Quarter Quell so that you'd have to be sent back to the arena."

"Lies."

"She blew out the arena trying to destroy you, hoping you'd burn alive. She is the Girl on Fire after all."

"_Please_."

"Mr. Mellark," Snow blocks the screen now, blocks Peeta's view of the images of himself screaming, of Katniss raising a bow to aim an arrow at him as he drops a knife into a lake. Peeta can't look away from the screen, his eyelids are being held open by something, and now Snow's face is his only view. "Mr. Mellark, Katniss left you to die."

Peeta stops digging his wrists into the cuffs. His mind is out of rational grip, the fear is everywhere, making his heart pound and his blood turn sluggish. His limbs feel like dead weight and he stops straining forward in a pathetic attempt to escape. Masked men around him who look like scientists watch and jot notes in notebooks, as if he's some type of experiment.

All Peeta wants is to close his eyes because Snow has moved away and Katniss Everdeen is on the screen in front of him, and for the first time in his life the sight of her scares Peeta.

Because Katniss has tried to kill him in the past and Peeta is in love with her.

oooOOOooo

"Help me, Effie," Peeta groans, clutching his head with his hands as his old escort hovers around him, something positively murderous in her eyes. In their jail cell, with Johanna gone for another torture session of her own, Effie is the only one there to see Peeta break down after his most recent 'hijacking' experience. "Please. They keep showing me images- keep telling me all these things-"

"Don't believe them, Peeta." Effie says, clutching his wrists, her nails- which are stubs- digging in as hard as they can to bring him back. "Don't you dare believe them."

"I go back and forth..."

"Peeta," Effie's voice breaks and he sees a tear fall to the ground, followed by another, and another. "Remember who the enemy is."

"I don't know what's real anymore," he replies brokenly, looking up at her. "Tell me what's real."

Effie's face hardens, even as more tears stream down her face. "Snow is a monster," she says determinedly. "That is what's real."

"And Katniss? What is she?" Peeta begs, pleads for an answer. Effie will not lie to him, Effie has only ever protected him in her own way.

"Katniss is what you are fighting to get back to." Effie says.

Peeta wrenches away from her and turns to huddle in his corner without another word.

Because he is unsure whether or not Effie has just lied to him. Half of his memories agree with her words, but the other, shinier half, protest loudly.

He clutches at his ears and rocks back and forth, not even hearing Effie's frantic, panicked cries. All he hears are the voices in his head, clashing, hissing. He sees bows and arrows and two loaves of bread laying in the mud on a rainy day. He sees his mother screaming at him, raising a fist to hit him, and then it's Katniss holding out dark berries tinged in orange before grabbing his jaw and trying to force feed them to him.

He remembers her standing up in front of the entire class, in a red plaid dress with her hair in two braids, singing the Valley Song. She turns towards him and catches his eyes, just for a second, but it's enough.

It's enough to see the orange flames dancing in her eyes and the claws emanating from her fingernails. Enough to see that instead of normal teeth, she has rows and rows of fangs.

That entire memory is blurred at the edges, surrounded by shiny orange.

He remembers to earlier that day when Snow told him to think of that memory, even as he felt something jab into his arm and felt a fresh new wave of pain wash over him.

That memory seems fresh, new, tiny and breakable. Like it could shatter at the gentlest prod.

_You are in love with Katniss._

Peeta has two versions in his mind. The version of monster Katniss singing in front of the school, and another, of her with a face Peeta finds beautiful, even so young.

He's not sure which is the truth.

_Real or not real?_

Real. But the monster memory is stronger, sharper, and Peeta is starting to believe it.

But he also has a memory of burned bread, Katniss laying almost lifeless under a tree while it rains, and a beating from the hands of his own mother.

So Peeta clutches his head, because reality is slipping away and he knows he's going insane.

oooOOOooo

Peeta has learned many things while being escorted to and from his sessions with Snow.

He has learned the rebels base is in District Thirteen. He has learned that Thirteen is in fact, alive, thriving and fighting. He has heard that District Eight has been bombed and a hospital there, eradicated.

Most importantly, Peeta has learned that President Snow has a bomb squad assembled and ready to leave to attack District Thirteen. He has blueprints of where they keep their weapons, of where their bunkers are and other valuable storage areas they would not want harmed. "Thirteen is causing Snow too much trouble," the dark skinned guard says a tad too loud to his companion. "Snow has authorized an offensive attack. They're to be sent out while the boy's interviewing with Mr. President."

His companion shushes him, but Peeta has heard.

It's too late.

There is one last act of defiance Peeta can show. He must. He repeats his new mantra over again and again in his mind.

_You are in love with Katniss._

He tells himself that, pushes the orange memories away- _real or not real?_- ignores the questions he asks even as he thinks the words over and over again.

If he really is in love with Katniss as he tells himself he is- because he's not sure anymore, but why would he lie to himself?- then he needs to save her.

He needs to warn her.

oooOOOooo

He's just been injected with more serum, plagued with more images, when they prep him for one last interview.

He's been cleaned and freshly clothed, made up and primped, but still he's nervous. The shaking of his hands are still there and the memory of this morning, of what he heard is fresh in his mind, as is you are in love with Katniss.

But Katniss has hurt him and tried to kill him, so why is he in love with her? The very sight of Katniss, whether on a screen or picture, sends fear jolting down his spine.

He doesn't believe his words anymore. He has nobody to reinforce them, because he has been removed from his prison with Johanna and Effie. He is too hostile, guards say. Too wild. Too unpredictable.

Nobody knows what he'll do.

But so far he's been docile and willing and unresistant. He doesn't trust his own mind, doesn't trust himself, so he'll follow orders and instructions and even as his body is beaten and aching, he will trust in the people who surround him to keep him alive.

He doesn't know what for exactly, but vague thoughts of _plots, deception, orange memories, you are a weapon,_ come to his mind whenever he asks himself that question.

Peeta is very nearly broken.- but not quite. Not yet. He still has his mantra.

You are in love with Katniss.

It is all he has left from the time he was still sane and he holds onto it desperately, even as he questions it. He's so close to not believing it, so close to falling over the edge and succumbing to Snow's wishes.

But he has one last task. One last task, he tells himself with a breath of relief, and you can give up.

He gives himself permission to stop fighting. Weeks ago, days ago, this would have terrified him. Now he is only relieved.

Because holding onto his sanity is hard, and getting harder and harder. He slips, often, and it is getting harder to bring himself, his true self, back from that precipice it is so close to falling down.

Peeta is tired.

One last task, he thinks again. Warn Katniss. After that... you can give up.

He's led into a different room, one that has been made up in the Training Center. It is white, there are steps leading up to a platform, and there is a white podium. The podium of President Snow.

It looks like a prison, but Peeta doesn't say that out loud. Nobody here has ever really given much credit to his opinion anyway, he has found it is best to stay silent.

It hurts less.

Peeta isn't aware of Snow's presence until the President stands in front of him, blinding in his whiteness, and grips his upper arm so tight Peeta wants to cry out because his bones there are still bruised from last week.

"This is live." Snow says without preamble. "Say anything I don't approve of and I will torture Ms. Trinket before your very eyes and then Ms. Mason will follow. You will be beaten. Understood?"

Peeta does nothing but stare into Snow's eyes. There are unreachable depths in them, places so hidden that only craziness can reach them.

Snow means what he says.

So does Peeta. That is why he says nothing at all.

Snow takes his silence as a submital and turns to take his place behind the podium, instructing the camera crew- only a couple of people today, the camera man and the two women there for lighting. The only other people there in the room are Peeta, one guard and Snow himself.

Caesar isn't there.

That scares Peeta more than Snow's threats did.

"Let's get started," Snow says. "Peeta, you're sitting here." He gestures to a seat off to one side of Snow and the podium, an elevated chair in front of a green screen.

He moves obediently and takes his place, leaving his guard to stand behind the camera and off to the side.

"Let's go," Snow instructs and the camera people take their positions immediately. The air in the room is somber and heavy, pressing down on Peeta and making him feel choked for breath. Everyone is quiet, which is strange, and Peeta has a bad feeling.

_You are in love with Katniss. _

_Say anything I don't approve of and I will torture Ms. Trinket before your very eyes and then Ms. Mason will follow._

"Are you ready, Mr. Mellark?" Snow asks him.

_Warn Katniss... and then you can give up._

"Ready," Peeta replies.

His forehead breaks out in sweat as the red light on the camera blinks on, his prosthetic foot taps out an irregular beat on the rung of his chair subconsciously, and Peeta doesn't notice but he receives irritated looks from others.

But not Snow. Because Snow is who the camera is focused on right now. He talks and Peeta tries to bring himself back to the present, tries to calm his fear and remember what he has to do.

Warn Katniss.

But she tried to kill you.

Warn her.

She hates you.

Warn Thirteen.

They destroyed your home, District Twelve, when Katniss asked them to.

You love her.

You don't. You're afraid of her.

"Peeta has some words he would like to share with us as a nation, and with the rebels. Peeta?"

Snow's tone is friendly, casual, but his eyes are hard and cold, full of promise and warning.

His speech is fractured, punctuated by silence every few words as he regroups and organizes his scrambled mind once more. He talks about cease-fire, of preserving their little population and saving themselves as a race. He talks of eradication of everyone and everything they've known and about how they need order. He talks about the little things he's heard in the hallways, of a broken dam in District 7, of derailed train with pools of toxic waste spilling from its cars. He talks about granaries collapsing after fires and how the rebels and their disruption were the cause of it all.

He speaks empty words that even he doesn't believe. He's just taken another breath, another few seconds (too long, people notice) to collect himself, to gather his thoughts, when the screen showing himself on television changes.

His fractured thoughts (_warn them, no she hurt you, she's your enemy_) all come together to make sense the moment he sees her face on the screen showing what every television set in Panem sees.

Peeta sees Katniss and sense fills him once more. Reality comes back and suddenly he is_ Peeta Mellark_ once more, not the Capitol weapon Snow is trying to make him.

With his last piece of strength he holds onto his fragile grip of himself. He roots himself into his own brain, digging his heels into the chair, as he watches the screen desperately.

He's been trained to feel fear when he sees Katniss in the last weeks, and his body does. Fear fills him.

But Peeta's rational side is back and he wars with himself. This is the tracker jacker venom, this is Snow, this is fake.

Not real.

They're changing him, torturing him, and he tries to remind himself, but while the crazy, insane version of him is gone, it is gone. Peeta is only one man, of two minds, but when one replaces the other it is complete. He can't speak to himself. All he can do is tell himself things over and over again and have memories of it later on.

He repeats his mantras as he watches Katniss on the screen, taking in every detail he can. It has been so long since he's seen her and his heart aches, hurts more than the rest of his body does. It's heavy and loaded and slow, even though fear fills his veins.

"Katniss?" His voice is a quiet whisper and he gets no reply.

She is stunning.

He misses her.

He has to save her. But he is not on the air right now.

Where is she? The bakery? No, the remains of the bakery. The remains of his old home.

Was Victor's Village spared? Or did Snow erase that too?

Speaking of Snow, the president was barking orders, moving forward a step or two beside his podium. "What is this? Get them off of there!"

"They're trying sir," the man behind the camera says, holding an earpiece, obviously listening to someone. "It's from Thirteen. They've broken into our broadcast."

Annoyance shows clearly on Snow's face, followed by fury, before suddenly he's calm again. "I can see that, Trikowski," he says with a quiet voice. "Fix it."

Peeta has been with Snow long enough to recognize the look in his eye, even if nobody else in the room has.

Trikowski would most likely not live another day.

This all happens quickly and Peeta's eyes are draw back to the screen, to one last image of Katniss standing amidst rubble and their former home, when suddenly Peeta looks and sees himself back on the screen.

"I-" He is unsure what to say, and glances at the president who stares back at him without saying a word. Peeta tries to regain control, tries to stop himself from slipping away, tries to regroup after being blindsided with seeing Katniss, really seeing her, not old clips, for the first time in what was far too long. "The rebels have bombed a water purification plant..." He trails off, frowning. What was he saying? Now that Katniss wasn't in front of him to see his sanity and rational reasoning was slipping away like water, trickling through his fingers. "Disrupting our ways of getting safe, clean water to drink, dooming the rest of us while they use their own resources-"

This time he breaks off and it's not Katniss on the screen, but Finnick, talking about Rue.

Rue. It felt like years ago Peeta had known Rue. Sweet little Rue who may have been Katniss's spark while she was everyone else's.

Finnick. Rue. Katniss. Johanna, Effie. It's too much, too many old faces and names and conflicting emotions. Johanna tricked him and Katniss, leaving Katniss to die in the Quarter Quell. Johanna has been tortured because of Peeta in this place. Finnick knew about the Rebellion but said nothing. Finnick is on TV pledging vengeance for young, innocent children like Rue whom the Capitol murdered. Effie protects him and Katniss, Effie draws their names to send them to the Hunger Games. Rue is sweet and innocent and young. Rue is dead.

Katniss is the love of his life. Katniss wants to murder him, to rip him apart with her bare hands.

Peeta doesn't know what to believe anymore and gives up on speaking at all anymore, watching the screen and the war for dominance that ensues. It's the rebels, protesting against the Capitol, then it's static with only the Panem Seal on screen. Finally Peeta sees Snow and himself once more and there is no interspersing clips from the rebels.

Snow says the rebels are trying to stop the Capitol from speaking out against their crimes. Snow says they are frightened for everyone to learn the truth.

Snow says a lot of bullshit.

Peeta watches the screen and yearns for another glimpse of Katniss even as he feels himself slipping back into the madness that hues and hazes his thoughts these days.

Snow's voice brings him back. "Given tonight's events, do you have anything to say to young Katniss Everdeen, Mr. Mellark?"

_You are in love with Katniss Everdeen._

Peeta finds his last scraps of strength and spends them, hoping he spent them well.

Save her or not to save her?

_You are in love with Katniss Everdeen._

Frowning in concentration Peeta speaks, checking and double checking the words that escape his lips like he had days, weeks, ago. "Katniss," her name rolls off his tongue, past his lips, and Peeta grips the armrests tightly. Focus. Warn her. "How do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you... in Thirteen.." _You are in love with Katniss Everdeen. Warn her. _

Peeta spends his strength and pushes the shiny orange memories away for a few seconds longer with a sharp inhale of breath and then a gasp. "Dead by morning!"

Snow shouts immediately, "End it!"

But the damage is done and Peeta slumps back even as the guard runs towards him. He sees one last image of Katniss standing tall and strong and alone in front of a burning hospital.

"Not safe there..." Peeta continues, but the camera has been knocked over and now only white floor is shown to the viewers. "Get somewhere safe- be safe."

He says the words right before a knife is plunged into his chest and pulled sideways.

His skin tears with a rip and warmth pools in his shirt immediately, even as the white surrounding them all is spattered with drops of red.

Peeta cries out before his vision goes black.

He can stop fighting now.

He does.

oooOOOooo

He is tortured for five more days. Ruthless hijacking sessions, beatings, starvings. Snow is true to his word and tortures Johanna and Effie before his very eyes, but Peeta really loses his mind on the fourth day when they hijack him for the second last time.

"She took your love, your trust, your home, your friends, your family, your life and left you here to be beaten and killed. She doesn't care what happens to you, she hates you, she wants you dead. Katniss doesn't love you anymore." Snow walks around him in circles again and again as he speaks.

Peeta breaks.

He starts to sob. "Please, please, stop, don't, _I'm in love with Katniss_-"

"You hate Katniss. You want revenge. You want her dead, want to see her eyes lose life and her limbs lose mobility. You want her punished for the things she's done."

"You want to end the Girl on Fire."

"I love her," Peeta whispers, staring into the eyes of the snake, watching him as he shakes his head amused, as if Peeta is a child who's said something silly.

"No, Mr. Mellark, you don't."

The shiny memories take over and the tracker jacker venom reaches his heart, making it beat faster to almost painful speeds.

The next day he is hijacked for the last time, but he hardly notices. Snow's work is done, he's a mutt without even realizing it. He is kept in a cell separate from everyone else and after the next day he is left- possibly without anyone ever intending to come and get him again.

The next day passes and Peeta is given a small Styrofoam bowl with soup in it. They don't want him to end up hurt after all.

He would laugh if he understood the bitterness and irony of the statement.

That night he is asleep and wakes up to the sound of his prison door sliding open. He is tired though, exhausted in mind and soul- although there isn't much of that left- and body.

He sees multiple shapes enter (guards?) but before he can even sit up gas fills the room and he falls unconscious once more.

oooOOOooo

He wakes up in a strange room.

This is familiar, for he's done this once before. So it's only reasonable that he panics.

It's only rational that he struggles even harder when he finds he's been restrained.

Beeps fill the room, strange smells, blinding lights and, terror fills him again, white walls. White everywhere. White people, white clothes, white walls, white sheets... White follows him and Peeta hates the colour more than almost anything.

Where is he?

"Peeta, can you hear me? Peeta? You're in District Thirteen. You're safe now."

Safe. If his mouth wasn't covered he would laugh. Nowhere was safe anymore. Everyone is vulnerable.

"You're in the hospital, we're trying to fix you up." The voice is a man's, unfamiliar, and Peeta relaxes a bit. There is nothing worse they can do to him, he thinks to himself, and he is comforted by the thought.

"We're going to let you sit up now, alright? Tell us if you feel dizzy or nauseated."

And then... they're letting him go.

He doesn't fight. He is wary, but he is also hopeful. He wants to believe these people, wants to believe that he's been deemed important enough to finally be rescued.

(It's too late to make a difference, but it means _something_.)

"You're badly wounded, so you're body will hurt for a while," the man in front of him is pale, worried looking. There is a crease between his brown coloured eyebrows and his blue eyes are concerned. "Is there any place that hurts worse than others? Anywhere we've missed?"

Peeta shakes his head, because he's not sure whether the man is asking if he's hurt- he is, obviously, but he's gotten used to it so he hardly notices anymore- or if there is a place that doesn't hurt which he intends to bruise to match the rest of the skin.

It is wisest to say nothing.

A dark-skinned woman reaches out to him and Peeta flinches on instinct. She freezes and when he looks down he sees she holds a plastic yellow cup in her hand, full of liquid.

Water.

His dry mouth aches for the wetness, but he's wary again. Is it poisoned? To cause pain? To kill?

He takes the cup. If it's poisoned to kill, he welcomes it. If it's poisoned to cause pain, maybe the momentarily pleasure of drink will be worth it. If the water is only water then there is no harm.

This is how he's come to view things. He hardly remembers a different way.

The old Peeta would hate that, would rather die than see how the Capitol, how the Games and the results of the Games have changed him. Made him into something he's not.

The old Peeta would not have given up.

But he has slowly been replaced.

"Thank you." He may not be the old Peeta but he is still Peeta. This water is pure and untainted. These people deserve thanks because he is immensely grateful for the single cup of water they have given him.

"Can you stand?" The man- healer?- asks him and Peeta nods, accepting the two strong hands and pulling himself off the hospital bed, clad only in a thin, papery gown. His legs wobble but he can stand and, after a few deep breaths, he steps forward, only leaning on the healer and woman slightly.

A few minutes later he is walking around without help. The doctors jot things down and even though Peeta is wary still he knows that he is outnumbered and surrounded.

It is better to accept whatever help comes and grit his teeth through whatever tortures are sure to follow. Peeta has given up on fighting back.

He sits back down and three men, one is the healer from earlier, come closer and speak in low, soothing tones.

It is how Peeta would speak to a spooked, wild animal.

The thought brings him little comfort.

The three men shine lights in his eyes, check his pulse, tap the under sides of his wrists and his knees. Peeta is calming down, is starting to relax as much as he can anymore. So far all these men have done is take care of him.

But then Peeta tenses again.

Because there, at the doorway, Katniss has appeared seemingly from nowhere.

Behind her are men, a dark skinned man and Haymitch, but Peeta doesn't pay them any attention. There is _Katniss_.

_You are in love with Katniss. _

_You hate Katniss._

_Katniss tried to kill you._

The fear is back. Desperation fills Peeta, the instinct to protect himself. He looked around for a weapon but there is none.

He doesn't want to kill her. He doesn't want to kill anybody.

But the animal instinct to survive, to protect himself, is overpowering when he sees a source of potential harm. When he sees her, somebody who wants to kill him, who wants him in dead in the most torturous way possible, his instincts scream at him to eliminate the threat.

He doesn't want to kill anybody.

But it's kill or be killed.

Peeta sweeps the doctors aside, rises and moves towards her. He lifts his arms and then, Peeta wraps his hands around Katniss's throat.


End file.
